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The Cognitive Dark Forest

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Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#231

Post by the_af »

lifeformed wrote: post #44
king_phil wrote: post #3

Dark forest makes no sense to me. Why would a civilization eradicate another, spending huge amounts of resources (time, energy, material) when the universe has such an enormous scale that you cannot even get to each other in a timescale that makes much sense...

"Timescales that makes sense" may be a human reasoning but not necessarily the reasoning of inconceivably advanced timeless civilizations. Sure, that planet of fish may be harmless now, but what about in a quick three billion years when they have FTL and AGI and Von Neuman probes and Dyson spheres and antimatter bombs? Easier to click the delete button now to save the trouble later.

The laws of physics apply to the civilization of alien fish too, it's not a human specific timescale. They have nothing to fight over with us, no reason to spend effort developing weapons to reach us, if they do have weapons they'd have a much higher probability of wiping themselves up first, and no way for their weapons to reach us within a time boundary that makes sense for any sentient race.

Dark Forest seems to be based on a scifi/fiction need to have conflict with "the other", which is thrilling but doesn't necessarily reflect the real cosmos.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#232

Post by Zigurd »

SQLite wrote: post #212
xnorswap wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero-contribution open source doesn't at all make it closed source. It delivers on the value of open source, that anyone using your software is permitted to make and distribute their own changes. SQLite is an example of a project that is open source but closed contribution.

Minor correction: SQLite is not closed to contributions. It just has an unusually high bar to accepting contributions. The project does not commonly accept pull requests from random passers-by on the internet. But SQLite does accept outside contributed code from time to time. Key gates include that paperwork is in place to verify that the contributed code is in the public domain and that the code meets certain high q…

I was about to try to make this point: there have always been projects that attract more potential contributors than there are competent contributors.

And there have always been techniques for identifying quality contributions from new contributors.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#233

Post by fade9697 »

I don't know, feels a bit too defeatist for me. According to the article: if you share, you feed the forest if you hide, the forest has already won *if you resist, the resistance is absorbed

This doesn't leave any room for contradiction. And I want to believe that as much as the tech-overlords believe that they control reality, reality is inherently messy and complex. Execution still matters, bureaucracy is real, big companies run in questionable directions all the time. AI companies also directly compete with each other and are not this monolithic being. In other words, the forest is not a single organism, it's a chaotic ecosystem.

I do agree with a lot of the points though because I think having this prediction machine on steroids is indeed an insane power to wield. I remember having those thoughts already about google ca. 20 years ago, them having access to every seach phrase. Now AI is this to the max, basically the demand curve of all human interest. Pretty unbelievable. And the asymmetry is growing by the day. But still, we are not there yet.

And for anyone who fundamentally needs their views changed on this, I recommend Vaclav Smil, How the World Really Works:

"Modern civilization will remain fundamentally dependent on the fossil fuels used in the production of these indispensable materials (ammonia, steel, concrete, and plastics). No AI, no apps, and no electronic messages will change that."

The world will revolve around that for decades to come! Thinking that AI eats the world is a Silicon Valley story and feels real inside of SWE circles but talk to some nurses or firefighters or people growing food and you will realize what a narrow field of view that actually is.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#234

Post by adrianN »

asdff wrote: post #200
jandrewrogers wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this but it only seems to be true for a shallow tech advantage, which isn’t this scenario. A sufficiently deep stack of compounded tech is robust against even aggressive talent poaching. The knowledge is embedded in the network, not the random individual. We see this in jet engines, silicon fab, et al.

I mean, even north korea has figured out the nuclear bomb, the original greatest secret deep stack of compounded tech. Seems like anyone can figure out anything if they are hell bent on it on this earth. Engineers seem to be more fungible than people anticipate I guess, and no one really comes up with unprecedented unique ideas. The whole research process incentivizes incremental work on known concepts to justify rec…

Korea had the advantage of like seventy years of technological advancement from the first nuclear bomb.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#235

Post by iib »

bsza wrote: post #211
xnorswap wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero-contribution open source doesn't at all make it closed source. It delivers on the value of open source, that anyone using your software is permitted to make and distribute their own changes. SQLite is an example of a project that is open source but closed contribution.

Maybe, but that's hardly comforting (and definitely not in the spirit of open source) if you're forced to take that decision, knowing it will hurt your project, because the alternative is getting DDoSed.

If by the spirit, you only mean the bazaar model, then yes. But it's in the original spirit of free software. GNU preferred to keep the development somewhat contained, even so many years ago.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#236

Post by the_af »

0x3f wrote: post #60
lstodd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point is you cannot know if they are an upstart (whatever upstart means). It can be misinterpretation, it can be camoflage, it can be anything. But once you rain death you're better be prepared to be grateful for what you are about to receive back.

Depends on the context. We certainly knew nobody else had nukes.

> Depends on the context. We certainly knew nobody else had nukes.

You wouldn't be able to know this over the vast distances of the universe.

People are arguing two contradictory things: these are unfathomable alien civilizations with motivation and timescale we cannot comprehend, but we would perfectly understand their tech level, location, and capability of striking back.

It doesn't add up. It's a scifi premise needed for interesting plot conflict.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#237

Post by mystraline »

The saying has been "Ideas are cheap, execution is hard".

No, it leaves out a critical understanding.

Dumb ideas are EXPENSIVE. Most ideas are average. Great ideas are exceedingly rare.

But now, its finding the great ideas is the real problem space. And now, execution on those great ideas are what we all seek.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#238

Post by the_af »

viccis wrote: post #109
king_phil wrote: post #3

Dark forest makes no sense to me. Why would a civilization eradicate another, spending huge amounts of resources (time, energy, material) when the universe has such an enormous scale that you cannot even get to each other in a timescale that makes much sense...

It's a silly concept IMO because it assumes that civilizations with the ability to do interstellar travel or communication make the decision to not do so because they have knowledge of an interstellar force that destroys any civilization that does so. It would seem like any civilization that becomes aware of such a force would be destroyed, so how would all of these surviving ones know of the danger? Actual dark fore…

It's silly at multiple levels.

As an explanation of Fermi's Paradox it fails to explain why, if all these dead civilizations are detectable enough to get destroyed, we haven't detected any. Even if they are now extinct, their emissions must have been great enough to get them killed. So where are they?

It's very, very unlikely all of them went quiet because they learned of this out of pure theoretical reasoning. So where are their "corpses" so to speak?

And if they cannot be detected easily, because they are too far apart or emissions are near impossible to detect or recognize as evidence of intelligent life (the more likely actual explanation of Fermi's Paradox other than the simpler "they just aren't there"), then there's no risk of destruction.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#239

Post by perilunar »

chairmansteve wrote: post #195
stego-tech wrote: post #87

I’m still optimistic that this is cyclical in nature, and not an inevitable - or indefinite - outcome. Humanity has endured regular cycles of shared enlightenment (usually accompanying profound technological or societal revolutions) and dark forests of protectionism, and we always find a way to the other side. Sometimes these cycles last a century; sometimes, but a few years. Still, we always make it to the other sid…

You are right. In the dark forest, the predators must eventually die out, because they can't find prey.

No. It's not really a predator-prey relationship, because the predators aren't consuming the prey for sustenance. They are killing out of self-defence only.

Re: The Cognitive Dark Forest

#240

Post by hrimfaxi »

zar1048576 wrote: post #116
hrimfaxi wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But again - the hard part is not cloning the product, it's stealing your customers. People don't seem to be focused on the hard parts. Big companies seem to be bad at innovating but really, really good at enterprise sales.

I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. I do think that a big part of enterprise sales involves building a comprehensive solution that works well within the customer’s ecosystem. Start-ups usually tend to build point products, which have value, but are still missing functionality (even if that functionality is not scintillating) that customers really desire to easily deploy and maintain solutions. Also, customers do…

I'm not saying it is always the case but does it not match your experience that big orgs like Microsoft are much better at navigating the enterprise sales process than a typical startup? Not to mention how many of those startups are just answering security questionnaires and other procurement gates with AI.
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